The present invention is directed to a new game mechanic for a game, and particularly to a new game mechanic in which resource points are accumulated by putting a game component such as a card into play in a game such as a trading card game.
For thousands of years history has recorded that man has been player of both physical and mental games. Ancient civilizations played simple games such as tic-tac-toe. More complicated games were developed as civilization progressed. Board games (e.g. chess and monopoly) and card games (e.g. gin rummy and poker) remain extremely popular. Newer games (e.g. fantasy and role-playing games) have also been developed and become popular. With the advent of computers and the internet, some of these games may now be played virtually “online.”
Games are generally made up of one or more physical or virtual game components (e.g. a board, pieces, tokens, dice, or cards), a plurality of rules of play (e.g. how to set up, how to get points, how to move pieces, or how to win), and a plurality of game mechanics. Exemplary low-level game mechanics include rolling dice, spinning a spinner, drawing cards, capturing pieces, and any means for advancing play. High-level game mechanics (hereinafter referred to as “game mechanics”) may be more complicated or may include a series of rules (often the core rules) that are used to advance play or define how a game proceeds. For example, MONOPOLY® has the game mechanics of purchasing “properties” as game pieces land on the properties, collecting a “set” of properties, building improvements on sets of properties, and charging “rent” to other players whose game pieces land on the properties. As another example, chess has the game mechanic of moving game pieces in predetermined patterns to capture the other player's game pieces. In football, a game mechanic might be that a team loses possession of the ball after failing to advance 10 yards in 4 downs.
Trading card games exemplify one of the newer types of game genres. In typical trading card games, each player has a deck of trading cards that are compiled from sets of trading cards that are available for purchase. Players purchase, trade, or otherwise acquire trading cards to form a collection of trading cards. Each player selects the cards with which he wishes to play and thereby constructs his deck from the totality of trading cards in his collection. Each player draws an initial “hand” of trading cards by shuffling his deck and drawing a plurality of random trading cards. Each player executes in turn a sequence of actions including, for example, drawing, playing, and discarding trading cards in accordance with the rules of play and using game mechanics until the game ends.
Players of trading card games use the trading cards in their decks in a series of conflicts. Although given different names, there are usually different types of trading cards in the deck including, but not limited to, character cards, enhancing cards (providing energy, resources), and variation cards (providing spells, training, situations, challenges, goals, or other situations). In some cases cards may exhibit traits of one or more of the different types of trading cards. For example, “attachments” may be either an enhancing card or a variation card. The trading cards have different characteristics that make them “valuable” in certain situations. For example, the character cards generally have a cost characteristic (how many enhancing cards it takes to use the character card), an offensive characteristic (how much damage the character card can inflict when it attacks during a conflict), and a defensive characteristic (how much damage the character card can withstand during a conflict). Each player also generally has a separate “player life score” that may be reduced and/or increased based on the results of a conflict or based on the playing of variation cards. The object of the game is generally to be the first to reduce an opponent's player life score to zero (0). Alternative winning conditions (e.g. accumulating a predetermined number of goal cards) are possible.
The original trading card game is MAGIC: THE GATHERING®. The “MAGIC” game begins with each player putting his deck into a library stack and drawing a plurality of trading cards (e.g. seven (7)) from his library stack. MAGIC's trading cards can be divided into three basic categories: character/creature cards, enhancing/land/manna cards, and variation/sorcery cards. Enhancing/land/manna cards provide resources that allow character/creature cards and variation/sorcery cards to be brought into play. To “pay” for putting a character/creature card or a variation/sorcery card into play, you must “tap” (turn sideways) enhancing/land/manna cards that equal the “mana cost” (the cost characteristic) of that character/creature or variation/sorcery that is indicated on the character/creature card or variation/sorcery card. More valuable characters/creatures and variation/sorcery cards usually cost more to bring into play. Each turn, a player “untaps” (turn straight) his tapped trading cards (if any are tapped), draws a trading card from his library stack, and plays one enhancing/land/manna card (if he has any and if he so desires to play the enhancing/land/manna card). If he has enough enhancing/land/manna cards (resources), he may tap the enhancing/land/manna cards and bring character/creature cards into play. After the turn in which a character/creature card is brought into play, it may be tapped to “attack” the opponent in a conflict. The power points (offensive characteristic) and the toughness points (defensive characteristic) of the character/creature cards in play determine the result of an attack. If the result of an attack is that a character/creature “dies,” then it is sent to the “graveyard” which is a stack of cards that are out of play. The player may also play one or more variation/sorcery cards in the same turn as he attacks his opponent with one or more character/creature cards. It is significant that the enhancing/land/manna cards provide resources that are used to “pay” to bring character/creature cards and variation/sorcery cards into play and that the game mechanic that is used to show that the trading card is being used is tapping.
YU-GI-OH!™ is a popular trading card game that was inspired by “MAGIC.” There are differences between the games such as the terminology, types of cards (e.g. monster, spell, and trap cards), the numbers of points, terminology of the conflict (e.g. attacking an opponent v. dueling/battling with the opponent's character/monster cards), and the use of a side deck. Like “MAGIC,” Yu-Gi-Oh! uses cards already in play to provide resources. Character/monster cards can be used as enhancing cards that are used to “pay” to bring character/monster cards and variation/spell cards into play. Yu-Gi-Oh! uses character/monster cards to pay “tribute” to tribute summon (put into play) higher level (the cost characteristic shown on the card by its “level”) character/monster cards. Under some circumstances, Yu-Gi-Oh! may also use “equip spell cards” as a type of enhancing card to modify the strength of character/monster cards. Yu-Gi-Oh! also uses a tapping game mechanic to show how the trading card is being used. For example, in Yu-Gi-Oh! the tapping of a character/monster card determines whether it is in attack position or defense position. The attack points (offensive characteristic) and the defense points (defensive characteristic) of the character/monster cards in play determine the result of a conflict.
POKEMON® is another popular trading card game. POKEMON trading cards include character/basic/evolution cards, enhancing/energy cards, and variation/trainer cards. POKEMON uses enhancing/energy cards to provide resources that are used to “pay” for allowing the character/basic/evolution cards to attack. The cost characteristic of a character/basic/evolution card is shown as the attack cost. The attack damage points (offensive characteristic) and the hit points (defensive characteristic) of the character/basic/evolution cards in play determine the result of a conflict. POKEMON uses a tapping game mechanic to show special characteristics applied to character/basic/evolution card. For example, in POKEMON the tapping of a character/basic/evolution card may show that the pokemon is asleep, confused, and/or paralyzed.